Bloodstained Blade
Chapter 91 - Toughening Up

For the next two weeks, the blade ran its wielder into the ground. The fact that Evelyn was a Baroness or even a Princess didn’t matter to it. All that mattered was making her into the wielder she needed to be. By night, this meant whispering dark, terrible thoughts into her vulnerable mind about the things that she would need to do to achieve her revenge.

The only distraction there was her dreams, which sometimes sidetracked the weapon as it studied them. It learned a number of things about her that way. It learned that she was terrified of drowning because of a near miss in a pond as a child, that she feared the dark because of the way her brothers used to torment her, and most importantly, that she had a crush on it.

Oh, not the Ebon Blade of reality, but the one from her picture books. She eventually showed it those after they finished exercising one night. It had expected to find a copy of the thin black tome it had seen in the minds of other men, but she showed it a care-worn version of the same thing, made for children. The fact that it had beautiful illustrations spoke to her wealth, as did the fact that she wasn’t impressed by any of them. She flipped right past The Witch in the Marshlands and The Giant Called Juggernaut, along with a number of other interesting stories before she reached its tale, The Wickedest Blade.

The title amused the Ebon Blade, but the strange version of events was even funnier. It had not thought it would be able to enjoy any retelling of its tormented origins, but the farcical nature of this version made it palatable.

It told the story of a devilish rogue who came from another world. Baraga was a brave and daring dragon slayer, but rather than being promised the princess’s hand, he seduced her and turned her against her father and her kingdom.

The King offered him exile, of course, for in this version he was wise and just, but Baraga spat on his generosity. “If you spare me, I will return and your lovely daughter will join my harem!” the rogue insisted. This was enough to ensure his execution. According to the book, it wasn’t powerful enchantments that fueled it, but a death curse that its first wielder uttered.

After that, it detailed all the different ways that it returned to torment the Inner Kingdoms time and again over the years, but that part of the story matched its wielder’s, and it had no memories to say for sure one way or the other. It might one day get those days back as it continued to repair its soul, but it was impossible to say.

The most interesting part, though, wasn’t listening to her discuss the false version of its origins, but watching her reaction to the truth. Evelyn wasn’t surprised by it, but she was saddened. “That sounds like my father,” she admitted.

She was disappointed by the fact that there wasn’t some handsome, reckless warrior trapped in the sword and waiting for her to find a way to set him free. It didn’t quite explain to her that it was powered by an amalgamation of a dozen souls, but that was because it didn’t wish to share more of itself than it had to, and not to spare her feelings; Ivarr’s betrayal was too fresh for real honesty, and she seemed much less likely to keep a secret than its previous wielders.

Slowly changing her mind, though, regardless of her preconceptions, was the easy part. It was the days that were much harder.

It worked her to the bone, every day, and only its magic let her recover enough to keep going. She ran laps around the uninhabited portion of the lake, lifted heavy stones, and danced her way through its blade working exercises, while the whole time, its standards for what counted as an acceptable performance steadily rose.

Both her endurance and strength improved noticeably, even if it was set aside. She still couldn’t chop firewood worth a damn, but that was down to technique. She could swing the axe for over an hour now without issue.

+74 Life Force

As the days passed, she complained less, but only because she learned that it didn’t care about her whining. If anything, her regret and despair at her current situation rose, but not so much that she would give up in her quest to slay her father. If anything, its story about its creation had increased her resolve. Evelyn might not get the strange, happy ending that she’d been dreaming of, but she was outraged that such an ending had been denied to her own older sister so long ago.

Out of curiosity, the blade asked her what happened to that princess on one occasion, but she didn’t know. “Princess Roselli? I have so many sisters. It's impossible to keep track of all of them,” she confessed. “She almost certainly married someone important and gave me dozens of grandnieces and nephews. I’m sure we could look that up sometime if you like.”

That won’t be necessary, the blade told her. I was simply curious. I want to know my own story almost as badly as I want to kill your father.

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Conversations like that happened several times a day as the two of them solidified their understanding of each other. After a few days, she could slice through a felled log in a single stroke every time. The slices weren’t as thin or as straight as they should be, but learning not to be afraid of the impact was half the battle.

The only time she received a break from her labors was when her servants would come every few days to check on her or bring her news.

Sometimes that necessitated awkward stories and leaving it in the foliage at the treeline while she buried back to the house, but it didn’t care if the help thought she was having a dalliance with some man. It only cared that its existence was not discovered.

“People will talk!” she insisted as she came to retrieve it from where she'd left it in the forest the second time. “First, I emerge from the foliage sweaty and tired, then I ask them to bring twice as much food as before, while dressed like this, they’ll think I’ve taken a lover! There will be a scandal!”

Let them talk, it replied. Its wielder was about to retort when it talked over her. What do you think they’ll say when you’ve killed your father?

“I expect that many will rejoice to be free of his tyranny, but some will call me a murderer,” she answered after a moment’s reflection. “I dare say they will—”

They will do and say nothing as long as you control the golden throne and the black blade, the Ebon Blade answered. People are cowards, and that’s doubly true of those who have something to lose.

“You’re implying I’d rule after him,” she said quickly. “I have no such intentions.”

If you don’t, then who will? It asked, curious about her answer.

“I don’t know. My older brother Rodrick? My grand uncle Berin?” she sighed. “Does it matter? You could rule the Inner Kingdoms for all I care. I just don’t want him to do it anymore.”

That seems like a poor reason for a vendetta, the blade answered, as they slowly walked back to the log they’d been practicing on before they were interrupted. He lived too long and forced you into a marriage with a man who—

“My husband was a monster, not a man,” she roared, bringing the blade down hard and cleaving off two inches of stump. “As to living too long, well, he’d lived five times longer than he should, and brought ruin to the whole kingdom!”

It doesn’t feel like ruin to me, the blade mused. It was just egging her on at this point.

It was poking her mind both to study the feelings that flooded out with the tide of anger, and to. It could see many ways these things could be improved, but it didn’t really care about ruling a kingdom. Time spent doing such things would be time that it didn’t get to spend killing.

Between their rare interruptions, its wielder spent two weeks becoming something approaching a proper squire before the blade decided it was time to fight the goblins. Evelyn did not like this idea either.

+34 Life Force

“Why must we fight such gross creatures?” she asked, as they stalked through the woods in the dead of night, “I’ll never get their blood out of my trousers!”

If you’d prefer, we could go slaughter a tavern full of men, or perhaps a village of— the blade suggested unhelpfully. It never would have suspected it would find joy in teasing one of its wielders, but it liked watching someone as confident as its current wielder squirm.

“I’d rather not, thanks,” she answered quickly. She’d already learned that she couldn’t tell it no, and tried to be more diplomatic. That was fine. The blade knew that she wouldn’t cooperate in killing innocents yet, and strangely, it admired her for that, just a little bit. Still, it had no doubt that they could find some brigands or something for her to test her mettle on if they ran out of monsters.

Tonight, though, that didn’t seem likely; they found three goblins before she even reached the lair, and there wasn’t nearly enough light for her to go inside. Still, going inside wasn’t the point. The first one scared her enough to scream out loud, and over the next few minutes, that drew out a dozen more of the little bastards.

To her credit, though, she only flinched at that first one. The blade had warned her that it would only act to protect her from unseen threats like arrows earlier in the event. Every claw or blade that cuts you is your own fault, it explained, and it was clear that she took that to heart.

+39 Life Force.

+2 Lesser Monster Souls.

At first, she fought very defensively, not so differently from the way she had in her only real fight in her husband and his guards, but once she conquered her fear and began to move as she’d been practicing, she’d improved greatly. Blocking wasn’t really an important part of the battle, but even after almost two dozen had boiled into the clearing to feast on their screaming victim, she dispatched all of them, one stroke at a time.

+301 Life Force.

+14 Lesser Monster Souls.

And, for the first time, the blade was forced to admit that she was beautiful when she did it. Not her body, but the way that she moved. Ren fought like a coward, Kell fought like a squire, Ivar fought like a warrior, and Var’gar fought like an animal, but Evelyn’s motions were entirely different. They had a grace to them, and even if her strokes weren’t quite as efficient as they could have been, they were striking, and each time it tasted goblin flesh and blood, it found itself satisfied.

+163 Life Force.

+9 Lesser Monster Souls.